


Dreams and Misdemeanors

by galacticproportions



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Consensual Sex, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Scheming, Scum and Villainy, Threats of Violence, bangable human disaster, consensual making out, hairbreadth escapes, transactional sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 09:12:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8366623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galacticproportions/pseuds/galacticproportions
Summary: If Lando Calrissian and Han Solo met as kids on Corellia, here's how their adventures might begin.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Deputychairman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deputychairman/gifts), [gloss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/gifts).



> I've been working on this for ages, and finally got around to finishing it. Everybody who saw The Empire Strikes Back knows that Han and Lando are space husbands, and I wanted to play with the idea that they'd been a pair for a long time
> 
> Han's characterization here, in particular, owes a lot to gloss and Deputychairman, to whom this story is lovingly dedicated.

Some days you look back on and you think, _That was the day my luck changed._

Han was running a packet of don't-ask-me-no-questions-and-you-won't-get-told-no-lies across town for the Kuyurki brothers, and sure, time was a little tight but he _easily_ had time to detour by the shipyard and see if anything fancy but secondhand had come in, not that you ever got anything that great on Corellia, but sometimes a Core Worlds pilot looking to do a little shady business would touch down for a few days, and even though nobody had that much use for the new Empire here you couldn't help admiring their sleek lines-- _that's what money can buy_ , Han always thought bitterly, _money and fear--_ and when he heard the snickering and the shouted insults he almost kept moving because he didn't need trouble, didn't need it ever and particularly didn't fucking need it today with whatever he had in his pocket, but something moved him around the hulk of a cruiser (whose crew had probably fucked off to the bars) toward the source of the sounds.

Worse than he thought: six on one. The six were port punks or trying to look like it, spiked knuckles and greasy vests and stim-bright eyes ringed with dark smudges. The one was a kid around Han's age, ten or so: back against a hangar wall, holding a flick-knife like this wasn't the first time he'd had to use it. Hard to figure why they'd be cornering him--he didn't look rich or important--but that was a question for later. Even with the knife, if they all piled on he didn't have a shot in hell. Even as he thought this through, Han was already stooping and groping in a pile of blown-out parts and lengths of pipe; his hand felt the weight of a heavy one and flung it dead at the small of the center guy's back. He folded. The others startled and turned, breaking the circle, and the kid grabbed his hand and yanked him around the corner.

"Duck in here, they can't fit," the kid panted, swinging himself up into the mouth of the hangar's huge air duct, so Han scrambled after him and they crawled, their breathing and the impacts of their knees echoing harsh off the metal, the punks yelling insults that echoed harder down the barrel of the duct. But it was clear the kid was right, they were too big already to get in with room to do damage, and their heads pulled away, leaving the mouth of the tunnel a hot coin of afternoon light.

"What if they wait for us?" he demanded, like it was the kid's fault for getting him into this, which it was, kind of, but also kind of not at all.

The kid grinned, a truly happy grin that reached his pretty eyes. "They can wait all day and all night. We're going out the other end."

"Where's it come out?"

"No clue. C'mon." They crawled. Han was going to be so late with the merchandise, and so fucked--the people he was delivering to weren't interested in good deeds and probably wouldn't believe him if he said he'd tried to do one. If he got in bad with the Kuyurkis he could try a rival gang, but in that case his former employers would probably send someone to kill him, nothing personal, just like crushing a louse. He might end up bedding down with one of those port punks himself, sooner rather than later. He had plenty of time to think about this while he crawled after the kid, who somehow smelled like cinnamon as well as sweat.

The air duct seemed fucking endless, but just when Han thought his knees were going to give out it did end, about two stories in the air near the ceiling of the hangar. And Han had to literally sit on his hands to keep from pushing the kid off the lip of the duct because he was _laughing,_ like this was _funny,_ like they were having an _adventure._

He said, "We are gonna fucking die," and realized he was laughing too, couldn't help it, rolling against the metal walls, to the point where he was afraid he'd piss himself. The kid gasped, "Guess we gotta go back," and somehow that was the funniest thing Han had heard all year.

The noise they were making attracted attention. A forewoman's voice echoed upward, "What are you little shits doing up there?" and the kid, unbelievably, called back, "Running away from a bunch of assholes who were trying to kill us!"

"Well, you better run back the other way," she responded. "You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here," and she waved a blaster to punctuate her point.

So back they crawled, Han leading the way this time and cursing the day he was born. But the punks were gone, the first thing to go right on this gods-blasted day. They spilled out of the mouth of the duct and collapse on the shipyard ground. The kid got up first, and helped Han up. "Thanks," he said seriously. "They were looking to fuck me up."

"What for?"

"They said I stole something from them, but I didn't." But he looked to the side as he said it. "I do steal stuff! But not from them. Anyway, you didn't have to do that, so thanks."

"Yeah. Sure. Well, I gotta try to get where I was going, I'm late and I'm gonna be the one that gets fucked up. See you around, I guess."

"Can I come with you?" Han stared. "'Case they try to jump you again, or something. Maybe I can help you explain why you're late."

Now _that_ was funny. But, "Sure," he said. "If you want." He didn't really know why he was saying yes. If this kid was really as green as he seemed, he wasn't doing him any favors by bringing him into the Busted Flush. But the kid fell in alongside him with an easy swing, like they were storybook boys strolling through the fields of a much greener planet, and Han didn't want him to leave. "I'm Han," he said gruffly.

"Lando. Where are we going?"

"To the Busted Flush. I gotta drop something off."

 Lando snorted. "My nana's competition. She says they water the liquor there."

"Don't _you_ say that while we're in there, 'less you wanna get us killed."

"Hey, what do I look like to you? You watch. You got me outta trouble, I'm gonna get you out."

And he did. He practically charmed Yulgi Kuyurki's tusks right out of his head; Han could have sworn he saw Lando's eyelashes getting longer. "He saved my life, mister, I had to come and speak up for him."

Yulgi grunted, "No payment this time, don't let it happen again," and flicked the packet upward on the point of his knife. "Get." They got. Back out in what was twilight by this time, a safe distance away, they collapsed again in laughter against a wall that gang graft had ensured would never be finished. "Sorry you didn't get the money," Lando said, turning serious. "Are you gonna be able to eat tonight?"

"'Course I will. You think I'm so broke I can't eat?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I do. Come back to my nana's with me. She'll complain about it, but she'll feed us."

Sometimes, somebody changes your luck for you.

 

*

 

Every day they found something new to steal, someone new to trick, something different to try. They were small, so they started small, just stole things they wanted--smokes, dirty holos--but they branched out into selling pretty quickly; Han developed a knack for fixing junked offworld tech long enough for an unsuspecting customer to get a safe distance away, and Lando's sales pitches convinced anything sentient enough to carry money that he was doing them a favor by taking it from them. He wrung softer hearts, flattered the ones who thought they were tough, and impressed the tricky as one of their own. (He also impressed the shit out of Han, who couldn't bluff to save his life.) Every night they washed the dishes in Lando's nana's bar and got out the jar where they poured the night's dregs--the ends of bottles, or, much less often, a drink left unfinished--and stumble-climbed up to the loft.

The loft was an improvement--to understate it--on the piles of spice sacks in the Kuyurkis' basement, or the warm exhaust vent at the back of the bakery. And it beat the hell out of the closet at his mom's, where he barricaded himself while his stepdad alternately pounded on the door or fumbled at the lock. In the loft he slept warm and safe under two or three lumpy blankets, wrapped in the smell of stale beer and cinnamon, the sound of pigeons cooing and scratching and screwing on the roof tiles and of Lando's quiet breath.

The loft was dark even in the morning, so sometimes before Han went out to run for the Kuyurkis (he still took a job for them from time to time, having more money to set aside was too good to pass up) they took the opportunity to give the dirty holovids a quick watch before upselling them, usually to horny spacers looking ahead at long runs who pretended to look shocked that _kids_ were selling these things but bought them anyway. Watching together, they giggled and gasped. Han saw combinations and positions he'd never imagined, some that filled his mind with possibilities that he had honestly never even considered, and a couple that reminded him of things he didn't want to remember. His neck locked and his tongue felt thick in his mouth, and then Lando was staring at him and thumbing the playback off, removing the chip, snapping it in half and throwing it in the lidded bucket they used for a night-pisser. He looked at Han hard under those lashes, half-concerned, half-defiant. He didn't ask stupid questions like, "Are you okay?" even though he clearly wanted to, so Han didn't say anything stupid like, "Thanks," even when his voice came back to him.

And under the rag mattress, under the boards of the loft, was the money. They slept over it because that was safest, but also because it was the key to their dreams, their passage out. When they were too wound up to sleep, they dreamed.

“We'll go to Coruscant and live at the top of a building that goes on forever.”

“We'll get the fastest ship in the galaxy, we'll outrun everything.”

“We'll go to Naboo and live in a palace and go swimming every day.”

“We'll have … I don't know … what do rich people eat? Steak. Wine. Chocolate.”

“We'll have so many credits people will pay _us_ to pay them.” That made Lando giggle, and snuggle Han closer.

Some of the stuff they stole Lando resold at school, which was surprising mostly because Lando actually _went_ to school. It was part of his deal with his nana, he said almost apologetically; free room and meals as long as he stayed in till he was seventeen. "It ain't free if you have to work in the bar," Han pointed out.

"School's not bad. Well, okay, it's bad, but it's not _that_ bad. You get to learn about battles, shit like that. And some stuff about math that could help us make more money later on."

Han wasn't too clear on how this would work, but he trusted Lando as much as he trusted anyone. He said, "Speaking of, this tentacle guy over in Yirt Town said they had a busted-up old pod racer for sale, wanna come with me to look at it?"

One of Lando's eyebrows arched up. "You sure that's what we should be doing with our money?"

"If I can get good at it I could enter some races, maybe. There's big prizes. Okay, medium prizes. And it'd be good practice for when we get our ship."

Han was able to get it running just with the tools he brought with him. They rode back together using one of the stinking canals as a highway, Lando hugging his waist and yipping with delight.

 

*

 

Around about the time they turned fourteen, Han figured it was only a matter of time before one of the bootleg porn holos they took for test drives showed two vaguely humanoid guys doing one of the things he wanted to do, and then he could turn to Lando and say, "You wanna try that?" In his imagination Lando looked slowly away from the projection toward him and said, "Yeah," and then things would go however they went. He could dream up a few different scenarios, all of which--the dreams, not the scenarios--ended with him fisting his cock and coming with the knuckles of his other hand jammed into his mouth. Usually this was in the privy, since if he so much as turned over in the loft Lando could hear him, and it seemed gross--gross for Lando, not gross for him--to do that with someone right next to you if you weren't already doing it together, on purpose, because you both wanted to.

The problem was that none of the holos they took in, for weeks, had anything like what he was looking for. They featured nonhumanoid species, or they showed men and women, or two women, or more than two people, or all of the above, or they had people pissing on each other or one leading another around on a leash. One or two of them--a girl taking her guy by the throat and calling him names, some of which even Han had never heard before--made him hot but didn't seem like the right thing to start with. Finally he came out with it when they weren't watching porn at all, but trying to decide whether to bribe a customs officer and if so, how much would get her to take them seriously without making too big a dent in their stash. Lando said, "I asked around and I think we have to offer at least two-fifty for her to even look at it, but maybe some of that could be a cut of the sales," and Han said, "Do you wanna kiss and maybe like rub on each other and stuff," and then wished, fervently and completely, for Corellia's sun to go nova.

Lando got very still except for his left hand, which started fidgeting with a twist of wire that Han was saving to bypass something. Didn't say anything. Han didn't either, just concentrated on not throwing up. Lando said, "Yeah, if you do."

"I just said I did."

"So come over here then." They were sitting on the bed, but not close. Han moved over, his heartbeat taking up his whole body, and still feeling slightly like he might vomit. Lando leaned in very close--the cinnamon smell came from actual cinnamon, Han had learned, Lando's nana chewed it as a mouth freshener after the stinking cigars she smoked, and so Lando did too, but minus the cigars--so close that Han could feel his breath when he said, "Say stop if you wanna stop," and then his lips, the softest thing, Han thought his arms might not reach all the way around this feeling but he reached out anyway and pulled Lando down on top of him.

They did exactly what Han said, they kissed and rubbed on each other. Han didn't know how to ask for what else he wanted but it didn't matter this time because just feeling Lando's thigh press against his cock was enough to make him come, with Lando laughing in his ear and saying, "Put your hand on me, you want to?" so Han moved his hand between their bodies and sort of groped around until he got a good grip and sucked on Lando's lower lip like it was his only source of air, until Lando arched down into him and swore into his mouth.

Then they just rested for a while until Han finally said, "Why'd you say the thing about stopping?"

"Someone said it to me once. Seemed smart, 'specially since I didn't know if you even liked to do any of that."

"I do if it's my idea." He thought that even thinking about it that much might make him feel sick in the old way, but it didn't. "Someone who?"

"Someone at school. A while ago. What if sometimes it's my idea?"

"If it's _your_ idea it's okay." Lando's neck was right there, so he kissed it.

 

*

 

When they were both around 16 three things happened close together: Lando grew a mustache, someone stole their money, and they almost got picked up by an Imperial press gang.

The mustache should've been incidental, but wasn't, because it transformed Lando--outwardly--from a good-looking kid into a man so handsome and dashing that it became a major element of their negotiating strategy, a major pain in the ass anytime Han had to concentrate on something else, and a major problem when Lando came back to the loft and said, "I gotta talk to you about something."

Han grunted, wielding needle-nosed pliers to straighten out the firing pin of the blaster he'd bought eighth- or tenth-hand from a blue-green motherfucker with a lazy eye.

"That munitions smuggler," Lando said, in a hesitant voice that wasn't like him at all. "Taiaba Ras. She's willing to take those crates of ammo off our hands for twenty-five hundred--"

"Twenty- _five?_ " A third again of their stash. With that and the racing purse Han was confident he'd win next week, it could bring them within reach of a ship. Not a great ship, but a ship, and then--

"--but she says only if a night with me is part of the deal," Lando said in a rush, and then knotted his hands in his lap and looked at his knees.

Han snapped the firing pin off short and managed, just, not to fling the pliers down, or at Lando's head. "No deal."

"It's so much money, Han. It would get us so close. A couple more deals like that--"

"Red fucking _hells,_ do you even hear yourself? A couple _more?_ You're not merchandise and you're not payment! We're not doing that! No deal!"

"I'm one of the things we have to offer," Lando said steadily.

"You're not a _thing,_ so no, you're not!" Another thought crossed Han's mind and made him ugly. "Unless you _want_ to fuck her, and you're just looking for an excuse. Or making it up. Or--"

There was no room to stand in the loft, and no room to sweep out, but Lando made for the ladder in as dignified a crawl as possible. "I don't make stuff up for you," he said. "Only for customers," and his head disappeared below the level of the floor, leaving Han to jab the point of the pliers at his own thigh over and over.

Neither of them had screwed around with anyone else in ages. Han had never really wanted to, and Lando couldn't be bothered. But maybe he was getting bored. Maybe Han was running out of ideas. Maybe--

"Fuck everything," Han said aloud, and threw down the pliers after all, making a dent in the planks of the floor. He shoved his arms into his jacket sleeves and propelled himself down the ladder, knocking his knee against a rung and half-falling the rest of the way.

There was petty cash in the jacket pocket, and even though they'd had a tacit agreement for awhile now to only drink to establish goodwill with a customer-- _I don't make up stuff for you--_ Han slapped some of it down on the bar. Doral looked at him curiously, flickering eir nictitating membranes. "Didn't know you liked this stuff," ey said, sliding the vivak across.

"First time for everything," Han said inanely, and downed it. "Gimme another one."

"Wait on it," Doral said. "See how it hits first."

"Something different about my money?" There is something different about his money. It's dream money, future money, money for him and Lando. It's _not_ his money; it's theirs.

"Wait on it," Doral said again. "Just wait a sec. If you still want it in five, I'll give it to you." Ey ambled toward the other end of the bar to serve a couple of slick-looking humans, probably air-pool sharks or some other kind of gambler, and Han decided against reaching over the bar and grabbing the whole fucking bottle. His ears were ringing a little but otherwise he was fine, absolutely fine. Doral ambled back and said, "Whaddya think, big shot."

"Ready when you are."

"Fine, but this is it for you." Doral poured it out. Han drank it and was about to ask for another but the stare from those big opaque eyes was too much for him. He could always take his business to another bar, if he didn't mind that Lando's nana would skin him alive and hang his hide up over the door if he tried it. That was the thing about money, it was good everywhere.

He stood, and the liquor hit him like a freighter at speed. He wasn't going anywhere but back up the ladder. Maybe not even there. He sunk back down, and Doral shoved a glass of water at him without being asked. Han took a swig and slumped over his forearms.

Time passed, probably. The bar filled and emptied and filled in waves of noise, and finally settled into the sound of Doral sloshing the front steps with water. "Go back upstairs, you little shit," ey said, tone gentler than the words. "Go and sleep it off."

Han slouched out to the privy first, pissed a little impressionistically, and made his way up to the loft. As he usually did before going to sleep, he moved the mattress aside and opened the floorboard fitted over their cache to look at the money, to touch it.

It wasn't there.

He felt all around the cache, groping in it till his fingers were full of splinters. He looked everywhere else, insanely, since no one who took it would just move it to another place in the loft. Lando came in and found him sitting on the bed, clutching the blankets in his fists and wheezing around his tears. "Just get rid of me," Han said over and over in a throat-scraping monotone, "get rid of me, get rid of me, I deserve it--"

It took Lando some time to figure out what had happened, and when he finally understood it he got very still for a second, and seemed to swell up, and then to deflate. "Well, that's that," he said. "We'll have to start over. Lucky we know a lot more about it now than when we started."

Han, still hunched on the bed, stared at him as though he were speaking Shriywook. Lando sat beside him and put an arm around him. "This could've happened anytime we were both out, it just happened to happen tonight."

"You think our money just _happened_ to walk out the door while I was visibly getting fucked up downstairs right after you stomped out because--" Han stopped. He hoped Lando couldn't see what he was thinking: that now they could _really_ use the money. He had just enough of a grip on himself not to pretend to joke about it.

"I already told Taiaba no," Lando said, still calm and apparently reading his mind. "That's where I went, to tell her. But I think we should consider it for the future, especially since this happened and we need to build our assets back up. Han, if it doesn't bother me, why should it bother you?"

"Because it feels bad! When people think you're a thing, a thing they can own, a thing they can buy!"

"I don't see it like that, like it would be bad for me. You know when you saved me from those port punks? When we met? It was 'cause they thought I was trying to cut in on their business. I wanted to get offworld so bad, and this guy with a cruiser said he'd take me on if I'd suck his dick, and I really thought it was a good trade. It just didn't matter to me like that."

"No one would've ever found your body," Han said harshly.

"Yeah, I know that now, but that was 'cause I was a kid. The kind of person who wants to fuck a kid, that's different than someone like--someone who sees me now. I look like a man to them, now, and that's what they want, not someone they can break. We can use it, just like we've been using how I look without me even doing anything. Just like I used it when we were little, to get you out of the shit with the Kuyurkis. Han, look, you could snap your neck racing, people do it all the time, remember when Aramoor crashed last spring? And that Shozer who's always at the sabacc tables in his hoverchair? But I never say anything about that, 'cause it's for us. This would be for us. But I won't do it if you don't want me to."

"Would you still want me," Han heard himself say, and would've given their entire stash--if they still had it--to stuff the words back in his mouth, because it wasn't just about that, it was about Lando too, not feeling like he had to, but now he'd think Han was just thinking about himself. But Lando just looked confused. "Yeah? Of course? It doesn't have anything to do with that. I might not even want all of them that much, I wasn't thinking of just offering it to everybody and their uncle, but even if I did, you can want more than one person."

"I don't."

Lando made a face that Han couldn't sort out, but he looked for disgust or impatience or boredom and couldn't find any, which was something. "C'mere," Lando said. "I'll show you how I want you," and the vibration of his voice, a third lower and more determined, went straight to Han's cock and up his spine.

Lando kissed him, slow and deliberate, pulling back when Han tried to drive his tongue deeper. Han hadn't known it was possible for someone _not_ kissing him to make him so hot. Before he knew it he was pleading, "Let me get it out for you, let me suck it, please, I wanna," and Lando was shaking his head, saying, "Not what I want right now. Get your pants off." Han tried, but had to stop and take his boots off first, and Lando just smiled, shading his eyes from the lamp with one hand and reaching for their bottle of slick with the other. When boots and pants were gone he bent and kissed Han's ankle bone, then slung that leg up over his shoulder.

"Nobody owns me," Lando said, holding Han's head with one hand so their eyes met and rocking slowly into him. "They won't, and you don't. I'm here--" he emphasized _here_ with a thrust that felt like it was grazing the vault of Han's skull--"'cause I wanna be. You hear me?"

"Yeah," Han panted, "yeah, I hear you, damn it, just—"

“And let me tell you something else. Everything I learn from them, I can do with you, if you like it, if you want it.” A sharp pinch to Han's nipple made him twitch like a live instrument panel. “Everything I do with them, I can bring back to you, 'cause that's what we do, we bring stuff back. For each other, for us. 'Cause we're partners. You want that?”

“Y-yeah.”

Lando pulled out almost all the way, even as Han tried to clench around him and hold him there. “You want it?”

“Yeah, harder, _please,_ fuck,” and Lando drew back like a bowcaster and snapped into him, and he came so hard he blacked out.

While they lay together over the empty space under the floorboards, not ready to break apart yet, Han held Lando clenched inside him and thought _mine,_ but didn't really believe it.

 

*

 

A few weeks later, after Han won two races and threw one and Lando had a couple of good nights at the sabacc tables, they had a meet scheduled with another bent customs official. It had taken them weeks to line it up and so even though they were still nowhere near the financial position they wanted to be in, Lando thought they'd better go and try to wing it. The tearoom was in the Old Town, quieter and damper and built low, mainly slick dark wood from when there used to be more forests here. A couple of tiny old human women were bent over a game of dominoes, with a crowd of people equally old looking on and kibitzing in soft hisses. Han didn't think he'd ever been anyplace so quiet.

Their contact, an older human with a pain-pinched face, twitched his head briefly and ordered tea for them, which Han had never had. He didn't think he liked it. He didn't think he liked how Iser Dufa was sitting, not just favoring his bad hip—he always did that, and that was why he was bent, he was trying to save up for surgery—but as if he were waiting for something. He tapped Lando's thigh three times under the table, their rough code for _something's off._

But nothing happened. They didn't reach an agreement, which was probably just as well, and they parted nervously but without hostility. Dufa left first, walking to the corner and scanning the main street, but that was probably just habit, Han thought.

Until he and Lando left a few minutes later and walked straight into the press gang.

Four Imperial stormtroopers, blasters and helmets and all, converging on them at the intersection. “You're coming with us,” one of them said, distorted in the mask, nudging them with his weapon.

“Great,” Lando said. “Long live the Empire.” Another trooper elbowed him in the stomach, and he doubled and retched and started to sink down, only for a third trooper to haul him up by the elbow and drag him along. Han noticed these motions with sick, crystal precision, even as his mind raced and his eyes trawled their surroundings for possibilities—could they pull down that awning? Was that piece of fence loose enough to wrench out for a club? But the troopers had them moving fast in the direction of the port, keeping to the center of the streets as they widened out. Nothing to grab, no tools, nothing to bargain with, except--

“Listen,” Han said, trying to sound tough and casual and just desperate enough, “you boys wanna have a little fun? We're coming up on a nice quiet spot, under the bridge here. I'll blow you if you let us go, all four of you, no questions asked.”

He spotted a slight, a very slight check in the step of two of them. “Nice try,” said one of the others. “Keep walking.”

“You sure? I'm good with my mouth, ask anyone. Ask him.” He jerked his head at Lando, willing him to play along, even though he wasn't at all sure where this was going.

“He's fantastic,” Lando said, and his tone surprised even Han; he sounded like the whorehouse barkers who sometimes leaned out at them from doorways. “Give him a try, you won't be sorry. He'll like it, he'll beg you for more.”

“What a planet,” spat the trooper who spoke first. “What a bunch of people. Pimping your boyfriend out to save your skin. Fucking degenerates. No wonder the Empire's--” and that was as far as he got, because Han got low and shoved with his shoulder, knocking him into his counterpart and making an opening for them, and then they were running. Blistering heat scored along his side and another bolt sizzled past them and marked the facings of the bridge, but they had just enough of a lead and the locks were right there-- “Please,” Lando gasped to the lockkeeper, and she nodded, stilled her coracle for them to get in and pulled the levers.

They descended in a rush of wet sound and stinking water, drawn down but not yet poured out. “We just keep here for a minute, okay,” said the lockkeeper, drawing a tentacle across her brow. “If they wait the other side—okay, one second,” and she pulled out a handheld communicator and rattled off a phrase in a language Han didn't know.

The communicator crackled back, the sound echoing off the stone and rust. “Okay, my friend down at the next lock telling me they don't come this way. Now we let the water out. You boys got money?”

“Not on us,” Lando said. “We just finished cutting a deal. We buy and sell. You need something, ask for us at Thelmina's bar, we'll get you whatever you want.”

She snorted wetly through the cluster of feelers around her breathing organs, and hauled the levers over the rest of the way. “You lucky I got two hearts, somebody with just one gonna leave you in the street.”

They were too shaken to do anything but make their way back to the bar. Doral folded eir brow ridges at them, and Han said something, he didn't know what. They went up to the loft and Han flopped back on the bed. “Well,” he said. “That went well.”

Lando sat rigid next to him.

“C'mon, we made it, and I didn't even have to blow anybody.”

“You are such a fucking idiot,” Lando hissed.

“Me! What'd I do? I got us the opening.”

“Yeah, but if you hadn't, how did you think that was gonna go? What was your best-case scenario there, Han? Those guys have quotas to fill, they have to pick people up, but they don't care what condition they're in. They would've hurt you, don't think they wouldn't, and I would've had to watch, except I wouldn't do that, so I would've gotten hurt trying to stop them. Or killed, if they decided we were both too much trouble.”

“I just thought.” Han stopped. He felt sick. “You played along.”

“'Cause I had to!”

“You said you'd do it,” Han said. “For us.”

“That isn't what I said do. It isn't anything _like_ what I said I'd do.” Lando reached out to him, gripped his arm. “Is that what you think it feels like to me? Four guys on one at gunpoint? Is that why you didn't want me to do it?”

It was slowing dawning on Han that Lando was mad at him because he'd been scared for him. That felt good. He put his hand over Lando's. “Kinda,” he said.

“I told you I was okay with it. I wouldn't be okay with that. Did you hear, like, anything I said the other night?”

“Yeah. I guess I didn't believe you. Sorry.”

“Me too,” Lando said. “If that's what you thought I was saying yes to. No wonder you acted weird.” He looked shaken. “That's not what—like what we do, it's not, you don't--”

“No,” Han said quickly, terrified. “No no no no no. I love what we do, I want to, I always want to, it's not like that at all.”

“Okay,” Lando said, “okay,” and he pulled Han's head down to his shoulder. “You have another race tomorrow, huh?” he said, voice traveling up through Han's skull and vibrating there. “You want me to come?”

“Only if you want to. Isn't there a game running down at the Double Star?” The Double Star was one of the halls where Lando played regularly, and sometimes won for them.

“Oh, yeah. Last time I was there I lost, but I heard that dealer got shot 'cause she was too crooked even for them. I might give it a try. Force knows we could use it.”

“Why d'you say that?” Han asked, more or less idly, because Lando was scratching around in his hair now and it felt nice. “Force this, Force that. That's all made up.”

“I don't know. I guess I just say it. Nana believes in it, I musta picked it up from her.”

Han set out before dawn the next morning to get the feel of the track, a wide dirt arena out on the edge of the city. It was risky practicing before the arbiters were there—sometimes somebody took advantage of the relatively low number of witnesses to put another racer out of commission—but he was lucky this time, the morning was foggy and cold and visibility was low, and he was able to get warmed up without anyone crowding him.

As the rickety duraluminum bleachers filled, some of the fog burned off, but there were still wisps and patches hovering over the track. Han saw a racer who'd beaten him a couple of times, an ex-slave—she traced over her forehead brand with gold paint to make it stand out more—and waved cheerfully to her. He felt good this morning, he wasn't sure why. Lando had kissed him goodbye and grabbed for his ass on the way out the door, and he'd walked by a couple of stormtroopers without them even noticing him. Han just felt like it was the kind of day when something good could maybe, possibly happen. Of course, those were always the days that the galaxy decided to take a giant shit on your head. He strapped himself in and trundled the pod up to the starting line.

And then it was just speed, speed and balance, slipstream and updraft, using everything he had, every gasp of fuel, every shift of his own weight, every motion his opponents made--even the fog itself, bursting around him. Time stretched out and flowed, and it was only when he crossed the finish line for the third time and saw the flags drop that he realized he'd won.

The purse wasn't huge, a modest 400 credits, and he skimmed a little off it to buy his rival—the ex-slave, who'd come in third to him and a big Togruta who seemed like they couldn't possibly fit in their pod—a drink, to soothe her spirits and keep her from laying for him. “Next time,” he said, toasting.

“Next time,” she agreed. “Good race, Solo.”

“Good race, Bakahni.”

He was no more than a little tipsy when he left the trackside beverage cart and made his way, pod in tow, toward the Double Star. “Lando?” the bartender repeated. “That's the handsome kid? No, he took off outta here like a tauntaun with its ass on fire. Said he had to go find you.”

“You know how the game went?”

“Kid, they don't pay me enough to care who wins, who loses. All I know is nobody pulled a knife on anybody and nobody threw up on my bar.”

Would Lando have gone back to the track? Han thought about trying it, but he wanted to get his winnings back to their stash first—they had a new spot, in a loose waterpipe at the back of the bar. When he moved the pipe, he found the scrap of flimsi on top of the stash: _Meet me at the port, Berth 7K._

Han carefully added his winnings and replaced the pipe, his hands shaking. He didn't want to think about what this could mean, in case it didn't mean that.

He took the pod over—his feet weren't fast enough—and he had to ask the way to Berth 7K twice. When he got there, it was occupied. With a ship. A light freighter, pockmarked, raggedy, with one viewport starred by impact. And Lando, standing in front of it, grinning under that mustache. “I got us a ship,” he said.

Han gaped.

“I got it, I won it for us. This cocky old Mandalorean piece of shit staked it and I won it, Han, I won her, she's ours.”

“YT-1330 492727ZED,” Han read, his voice hushed, like he was praying. He reached out and touched the plates. They didn't melt away under his hand; they didn't disappear, and neither did he. “Lando!”

“I know,” Lando said, coming up to him, hugging him. “I know. Even I can tell she needs some work, but you're the man to do it. And you're the man to fly her.”

“That viewport,” Han said. “And fuck, I gotta get her up on blocks and get her insides open, if the outside looks like this who knows what's going on in there. Can we—is it okay if we use some of the money for-- I have some stuff but I don't know what she's gonna need and I wanna make her good, I wanna make her the best.” Lando was laughing, hugging him harder. “I won the race,” Han said, and Lando kissed the side of his head, and Han really had to think about it, between kissing Lando and kissing the hull of their ship. “Gimme five days,” Han said. “Six days, tops.”

It took ten. He loved every second of it.

 

*

 

The tower had cleared them for takeoff. They'd lifted up through the atmosphere, the port shrinking behind them with delightful speed. They were orbiting, Han's hand hovering over the controls. “Where you wanna go?”

“Anywhere! Any-fuckin'-where, we can go _anywhere,_ Han.” Lando was in the co-pilot's chair, looking a little squeamish, even though Han had told him over and over, “It's easy, just do what I tell you and don't touch anything else, all you gotta do is listen to me.”

The hold was stocked with everything they had left to sell, which wasn't much, but they could pick stuff up on the way. On the way where? Anywhere. The way they were poised, Corellia's disk was out of sight, and all Han could see was the star field, bright, boundless, all options. At least, it was all he could see until Lando's head blocked it. “We did it,” Lando said, “we're _gonna_ do it,” and kissed Han and grabbed his head and bit his lip for him.

Han sunk into it until a hoarse honking sound erupted from the panel, and the ship wobbled. “Hold on,” Han said, reaching, “she needs me,” and groped around the instrument panel until the ship stabilized sweetly, ready again to take them anywhere they wanted to go.

Sometimes, your luck changes you.

 

 


End file.
